The invention pertains to room dividers. More particularly, the invention pertains to cabin dividers for use on board vehicles such as aircraft.
It has long been known to provide temporary partitions or dividers for temporarily segregating or partitioning a single larger room into two or more smaller compartments when it is otherwise undesirable to install permanent wall dividers. Particularly, it has long been known to provide partitions or bulkheads of various forms to partition vehicular space, such as in an aircraft cabin, into smaller compartments. Thus, it has been and continues to be desirable to divide an aircraft cabin into two or more compartments in order, for example, to separate coach from first class passengers on board commercial flights or to provide private compartments for executives on board corporate class aircraft.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,185,799 (Richards 1980), 2,710,731 (Bright et al 1955) and 2,307,560 (Apel 1943) all disclose partitions such as have been provided in the past for dividing cabins or compartments into smaller areas on board vehicles. In the past, such compartment dividers typically consisted either of rigidly fixed partitions of pre-defined shape (U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,185,799; 2,307,560) or merely provided curtain-type compartment dividers which were inadequate to ensure any great degree of privacy between the two compartments separated by the partition.
Room dividers for earth structures and dwellings illustrate a variety of folding door constructions. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,677,420 (Kaypur 1954), 2,978,020 (Paulsrude 1961), and 2,897,515 (Collins 1959). However, room dividers such as are provided in earth structures are considered too bulky and heavy for use on board aircraft.
Even the double hinged, folding door type of cabin divider has certain drawbacks which often result in such dividers not being provided on board aircraft. These drawbacks include (1) when the divider is in its open position, i.e. the passageway through said divider is open, the folding closure member is displaced within the passenger compartment and thereby takes up valuable compartment space, and (2) the folded up cabin dividers create an unsightly appearance about the passageway therein when the divider is in its open position.
It is known to provide small scale tambour or rolling doors to cover, for example, desk areas of a rolling type desks, the entire door portion being pushed back within a track into the desk when the work area of the same is exposed. It has not heretofore been known to provide tambour or rolling door constructions to vehicular room dividers. Further, due to the curvature of the aircraft fuselage it has clearly not heretofore been known to provide tambour door constructions within aircraft cabin dividers.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a vehicular cabin divider which is easily retractable or extendable.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a vehicular cabin divider of light weight construction which requires a minimum amount of storage space when the same is in its retracted or open position.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a vehicular cabin divider which includes a door which may be either open or closed.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide a vehicular cabin divider having a door which may be either open or closed, wherein said door would be hidden from view when the door is in its open configuration.